


Things Are Looking Up

by tinyghostie



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Alternate Universe - Not Related, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Has PTSD, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Pathological Lying, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Schizophrenia, Selectively Mute Diego Hargreeves, Social Anxiety, Stuttering Diego Hargreeves, sweeter than it sounds, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27701617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyghostie/pseuds/tinyghostie
Summary: Five's new to this place, but he already owns it. Vanya's been here for several years, but she still feels like she doesn't belong. Allison's been here for a while and made herself Queen. Luther definitely doesn't own this place, but he cleans it as if it's his. If Diego belongs here, he certainly hasn't said so. And that's Klaus. He's been here since the dawn of time.Or, six and a half psychiatric patients bond over the one thing they have in common: Daddy issues.
Comments: 28
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before I begin this, let me say that I am neurodivergent. I do not, however, have a clue about any of the stuff I'm writing about- in this fic, or in any fic. In fact, I don't really have a clue about anything in general. I would even go as far as to say that I tried to fry an egg in a waffle maker once, but was stopped by a good childhood friend. Sam, if you're reading this, thank you. So as much as I'm not neurotypical, this is practically written by someone who is, since this fic includes pretty much every mental disorder except my own. I wonder how that happened. Leave a comment if you like it, or even if you don't like it, but if you don't like it, please say that you do, because I'm too tired to deal with hate.
> 
> \---Warning for discussion of mental health and childhood trauma---

“Cheer up, honey. Maybe it won’t be so bad?”

Five growled from the front seat. He hated how cheerful his mom sounded. He was going to a fucking _mental asylum_. And he hated how angry he was feeling. If he could just try to rein his temper in for one minute, he might not have gotten into this situation.

It wasn’t his fault that his dad sucked. It wasn’t his fault that he was born with a fiery temper. He didn’t choose any of this.

But, like his mom said, he _did_ choose to punch that kid.

He wasn’t getting locked up because they were afraid of him, that was what Mom kept telling him. He was going there to get ‘treatment’. He didn’t exactly understand. Treatment was for illness, not for people who had bad tempers. That was what Dad said.

Five only hoped he wasn’t dumped in a room with some psychopath. He’d quite literally tried to kill someone once, but he knew that some of the people at this place would have _succeeded_.

When he checked in, everyone seemed friendly. They showed him around the place, and it sure wasn’t a castle made of diamonds, but it had a pool and a game room, so he supposed it wasn’t too bad. And everything actually seemed to be looking up, until-

“Hi there, young man-”

“Don’t fucking call me that!” Five shouted, feeling himself lose control once again. He kicked a plastic chair across the floor, growling and shoving a water dispenser, which, to his great relief, didn’t seem harmed. A few patients looked up from across the reception. He slumped down in a chair, breathing heavily. Thankfully, it was one of his less intense outbursts, but he still felt relieved, like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“What’s your name?” The same nurse asked him calmly.

“Five Jackson-Young.” Five grumbled, embarrassed at his inability to remain under control for even half an hour.

“I’m very sorry, Five, and I won’t call you that again. My name’s Claire. Is there anything else you don’t like being called?” The nurse asked.

Five was surprised. This was the first time he hadn’t been scolded for one of his outbursts. She actually seemed sympathetic. Why was she sympathetic? He kicked a chair and attacked a water dispenser!

“I don’t like… I don’t like it when people think I'm younger than I am. I'm nineteen, even though I look thirteen.” Five told her reluctantly.

“I’ll make a note of that. I understand why that might be upsetting. You want people to respect your maturity.” Claire jotted something down on a notepad that was clipped to her lanyard.

Five was confused, but something inside him celebrated. He didn’t believe his mom when she said she would take him to a place where he’d be understood, but maybe she was right. Was this heaven? Well, from what he’d heard, the canteen food suggested otherwise, but it was damn close.

“Would you like me to introduce you to your roommate?”

 _That_ suggested otherwise too. Five tried hard to keep his rage under control, but his chest felt tight and he couldn’t hear anything but the voice in his head telling him that he was going to be sharing a room with someone he’d just hurt. Probably an abuse survivor too. He’d hit them, and bite them, and swear at them, and they’d have a panic attack and probably die. He felt his fingers twitch.

“Five, can you hear my voice?” Claire asked, a genuine tone of concern in her voice.

Five nodded.

“Would you prefer to have a room to yourself? We can accommodate that if it would make you feel more at ease.” The nurse offered.

Five sheepishly nodded. For someone who could be so incredibly angry and violent, he sure could be shy when he felt like it.

“I think you’re coping exceptionally well. Do you have a current diagnosis?” Claire asked, without any judgement evident.

“Just anger, I guess.” Five shrugged.

“If it was ‘just anger’, you wouldn’t need help.” Claire told him. “Can you talk to me about when you get angry?”

“My… my heart beats super fast. I can’t hear. I get all twitchy and shaky. And then I just kinda lose control.” Five admitted. He’d never explained his symptoms out loud, and it felt liberating. “And when I’m done, it’s a relief.”

“Is it alright if I refer you to Dr Michaels for a possible diagnosis of Intermittent Explosive Disorder?” Claire asked, after taking a thoughtful pause.

“Explosive?” Five questioned, feeling a little stupid.

“Is that what it feels like, when you get angry? It’s the lack of control that you described that suggests that you suffer from IED.”

Five felt slightly overwhelmed by all the different terminology they used here. It wasn’t _him_ that suffered. He caused the suffering. That’s what he was always taught.

“Five, we can help. We’ve had people like you here before, and they’ve gotten better.” Claire told him.

“Is there a cure?” Five asked.

“No. But with therapy and behavioural exercises, you can learn to manage your condition in a way that means you won’t need a cure.” Claire said.

“Who’s Dr Michaels?”

Dr Michaels- or Evan, as Five was allowed to call him- was a nice man. He didn’t wear a white coat or scrubs like Five had expected, and he spoke to Five like he was an actual adult, instead of seeing someone who looked thirteen and talking down to him like he was a toddler. As it happened, Five _did_ have Intermittent Explosive Disorder, but it wasn’t a condemning revelation like Five had thought it would be. It felt good to put a label on it and to know that there were others like him.

It was evening by the time they finished, and Five was shown to his room- room 214- which did _not_ have a roommate, and he fell asleep quickly.

Maybe it _wasn’t_ going to be so bad.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five meets his support group and does some research.
> 
> Please note: Luther is British in this, and speaks with an English accent. I just... I just like British Luther. Maybe cos Tom Hopper is British. I'm not sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of support, thank you guys so much for all the lovely comments and kudos! I cannot express how much I love every one of you. I just *author death noises* thank you guys so much <3

The next day, Five met his support group for the first time. He’d been very reluctant, and threw another temper tantrum, in the hope that they’d let him out of it the same way that they let him have a room to himself.

They didn’t.

He walked down to the canteen and grabbed a yoghurt and a coffee (ugh, decaf) before a nurse directed him to his table.

Everyone in his support group looked vastly different from one another. There was a tall and muscular man with blond hair, who wore latex gloves and spoke with a British accent. Next to him was a shorter man wearing a brown shirt, who didn’t speak at all. Next to him was a tall woman with huge earrings and glittery eyeshadow. Next to her was an almost silent man with a goatee, also wearing eyeshadow. There was an empty seat next to him. And the last seat was taken by a short woman who seemed to curl in on herself as if merely existing was hurting her.

Five went to sit down on one of the two spare seats and was stopped immediately.

“Hey, don’t sit there. You’ll sit on Ben.” The blond man said.

Oh yeah. Five was in a nuthouse, wasn’t he? He almost forgot.

“Which of these seats _isn’t_ taken?” He asked, feeling stupid.

They all pointed to the seat next to the shorter woman.

“See, Luther, I told you we’d be back to six in no time!” The woman with the earrings said to the blond guy.

“Yeah, but now there’s seven of us. I’ll never sleep knowing that there’s seven of us!” Luther explained.

“Ben doesn’t count, he’s not real.” The woman with the earrings said.

The guy with the goatee got out of his seat and left the canteen.

“Great job, Allison, now you’ve pissed Klaus off.” Luther rolled his eyes.

Allison looked offended. “Well, there’s six of us now! Sheesh, be a little more grateful!”

“No, there’s five. If Klaus is gone, Ben’s gone with him.” Luther argued.

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.

“Wipe.” Luther instructed, looking at his watch, and everyone pulled small packets of handwipes out of their pockets or bags. Five was a little confused as to what everyone was doing.

Luther handed him his own packet of wipes and Five hesitantly wiped his hands as the others were doing.

“Luther insists everyone wipes their hands every half-hour.” The quiet girl sitting next to Five explained.

“You should’ve been here when it was every five minutes.” Allison rolled her eyes. “So, what’s your name, and what are you in here for?”

“My name’s Five, and I’m here for Intermittent Explosive Disorder.” Five mumbled.

“My husband had Intermittent Explosive Disorder. But I hear a rumour that he went to space.” Allison announced.

“Would you shut up about space?” Luther ran to the door, opening it and closing it six times.

“Allison is a pathological liar.” The quiet girl told Five. “She’s not married, and no one’s going to space.”

“Vanya Ivanov? Would you come for your therapy with Dr Michaels, please?” A nurse asked.

“That’s me.” The quiet girl said, and Five nodded. She left, and Luther returned to the table.

“So how old are you?” Luther asked, a confused look on his face. “I thought this place was eighteen plus-”

“I _am_ eighteen plus! I’m fucking nineteen!” Five snapped, slamming his hands down on the table, hard, and ripping a napkin to shreds. “Nineteen, okay? How hard is that to understand?”

The three remaining members of the support group stared in shock. It was obvious that they hadn’t expected Five’s outburst, but again, it also wasn’t one of his worse ones.

Luther took a deep breath. “You don’t look n-”

That was when Five lost control completely. He didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. His breathing was rapid, and he felt like he was choking, and he kicked Luther hard under the table before running out of the canteen, not exactly sure where he was going. His ears squealed with high-pitched white noise and he faintly heard Luther screaming about Five’s dirty shoes coming into contact with his leg.

He found a small alcove and curled up there, crying to himself. It was day two and he’d already scared his support group away. Heck, he’d probably set off half a dozen panic attacks, including the one he was experiencing himself.

After roughly half an hour of sulking and blaming himself for all the world’s mistakes, Vanya returned and sat next to him.

“What’s wrong, Five?” She asked.

“How did your therapy go?” Five responded, avoiding the question.

“Good. What’s up?” Vanya asked again.

Five sighed. “I went into another one of my rages and scared everyone.”

“That must be really hard for you.”

Five just didn’t get it! Why did people think it was hard for _him_? _He_ was the one hurting people; _he_ was the one lashing out!

“Do you wanna come to the library with me? Dr Michaels says you don’t have your session until this afternoon.” Vanya offered.

Five nodded, and Vanya showed him to the library. It wasn’t huge, but it had beanbag chairs. Five walked over to the librarian, whose name badge read ‘Tom’. He was a tall man with curly blond hair and blue eyes framed by thick glasses, and he wore a bow-tie and tweed suit.

“Excuse me, do you have any books on IED?” Five asked.

“I don’t think we do, but I’ll have a look. I assume you mean the mental disorder and not an unconventionally constructed or deployed military weapon.” Tom replied, going over to the section of the library about mental health.

Five laughed. “I _feel_ like a military weapon sometimes.”

“Would a book about anger issues in general be alright, or does it have to be IED in particular? I can order one in if you’re here for the long-term, or there’s a computer in the corner.” Tom suggested.

“Any book about anger is okay. And I’m not much of a computer person.” Five explained.

“I agree with you on the computer thing. I much prefer a good book.”

“I never would have guessed.” Five said, an undertone of sarcasm in his voice.

“Here ya go.” Tom placed a stack of books in Five’s arms.

Five steadily worked through the books for the rest of the morning, occasionally glancing over at what Vanya was reading. Seemed like some sort of music history book. Time flew, and before he knew it, it was 1200 hours, according to the large, looming digital clock that every room had.

His next hurdle was lunch.


	3. Chapter 3

Five grabbed a cheese and onion sandwich and a soda, then took a seat at his support group’s table in the canteen. Vanya was already there with the others, but Five had had to take a breather outside first. He wasn’t sure what he was about to get himself into, after what had happened that morning.

“Hey, Five. Glad you could join us.” Luther greeted him cheerfully. Five knew that he probably only wanted him there so there’d be six people at the table. Vanya had explained that Luther’s ‘special number’ was six, and he liked to have things in groups of six where possible. It made him feel calmer, and helped to decrease the risk of other things stressing him out.

Five smiled his most convincing smile before sitting at the seat he’d sat in earlier, hoping that he didn’t sit on anyone’s imaginary friends or hallucinations. Nobody protested against him sitting there, so the seat must have been free.

“How did your therapy go, Vanya?” Allison asked.

“Good.” Vanya replied quietly, staring at her shoes.

“Five? Have you had a session with Dr Michaels yet?” Allison turned to Five.

Five nodded. “Only one. He diagnosed my… um… y’know.” He suddenly felt very shy, ashamed of his condition. Everyone seemed to suffer as a result of their problems, but Five only made others suffer. It reminded him of his earlier outburst. “S-sorry about what happened at… at breakfast.”

“It’s alright, Five. I probably overreacted, and it was rude of me to challenge you when you said you were nineteen.” Luther told him.

It was getting difficult to bear, all this sympathy. Five had never experienced anything quite like it. He was so used to being treated like he was the one who should be apologising, and he was scared that if he went home thinking he wasn’t to blame, he’d get in trouble.

There was a quiet beeping sound from across the table, which repeated a few times, and Five looked up from his food.

“Ten minutes.” Luther said to the guy in the brown shirt who hadn’t spoken yet, who nodded.

“Morse code.” Allison explained.

“Diego uses his beeper to communicate. Only Luther really knows how to translate it, because…” Vanya trailed off, looking unsurely at Luther.

“I was in a space camp a few years ago. I learnt morse code there.” Luther admitted quietly, as if it was some great, dark secret.

“Sounds exciting.” Five said, taking a bite from his sandwich. He didn’t really understand why Luther seemed so ashamed of this.

“I didn’t want to do it. My rich dad forced me to. Like he said… it’s harder to open and close a door six times when that door’s airlock sealed.” Luther admitted, tapping his hands frantically on the table in patterns of six, increasing in volume.

“So, um… what’s everyone doing this afternoon?” Allison asked, gently grabbing Luther’s hands to still them.

“I’ll probably head to the music room if it’s free.” Vanya said quietly.

“Vanya, when’s my session with Dr Michaels?” Five glanced up at the huge clock.

“Two-thirty.” She replied.

“I guess I’m free until then.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Five… if you don’t mind me asking… why are you called… y’know… _Five_?” Allison asked hesitantly, not sure if this would prompt another outburst.

Five took a deep breath. “It was my Dad’s lucky number.”

Luther looked surprised. “Like me? With the number six?”

Five shook his head. “More in a gambling sort of way.”

Everyone was awkwardly silent again, sharing knowing glances with each other.

“Dads suck.”

Everyone at the table turned to Klaus as he spoke for the first time since Five’s arrival. Surprisingly, his accent was American rather than German like Five had expected.

“Damn right they do.” Allison smiled and gently fist bumped him. It was clear that they tried to include him, but he just seemed so fragile. Like he might crumble at the tiniest little thing.

Five went to the music room with Vanya and Allison after lunch. It was a small, quiet room, and he could certainly see the appeal.

Vanya took a battered violin out of its case. It functioned as it should, but had lots of small signs of wear and tear. Little chips, faded paint, that kind of thing.

Five was surprised by how well Vanya could play. It was oddly relaxing. He’d always thought of the violin as a sharp, screeching instrument, but this was… beautiful.

It reminded him of the way his sister used to play her cello. He felt the blood drain from his face as he remembered. The crash. The phone call. His mother desperately hoarding Amy’s possessions, and his father taking them and burning them. The splintering sound as he threw the cello onto the fire. Stealing the charred husk of its remains and smuggling it into his room, and crying-

“Five!”

“Hmm?” Five snapped out of his daydream and looked up.

“Are you alright?” Vanya asked worriedly. “You were shaking.”

“Uh… yeah. Fine.” Five shook his head, clearing the images away. He’d promised himself that he’d forget.

“I think that was a flashback. Do you need to talk?” Allison asked sympathetically.

“What’s a flashback?” Five asked, feeling slightly stupid.

“It’s where you relive a traumatic memory. It happens to a lot of people here.”

Thankfully, Five managed to push all thoughts of Amy and her cello to the back of his mind, and he learnt a bit about the others from his support group.

“Luther has OCD. He’s here because he loves sports but he’s afraid of getting dirty or injured.” Vanya explained. “He went to a boarding school in Britain where he had to swim laps of an outdoor pool at 3am every day.”

“Isn’t Britain meant to be insanely cold?” Five frowned.

“That’s the point.” Vanya admitted. “It was a punishment. They tried to beat the OCD out of him, but it didn’t work, so his dad sent him to space camp, then here.”

“What about the morse code guy, Diego? Why doesn’t he speak?” Five asked.

“He had to watch his dad die when he was younger. He hasn’t spoken a word since.” Allison said. “In fact, I think he’s the only member of our support group who doesn’t hate his dad’s guts.”

“Don’t bother asking about Klaus. Nobody knows that much about him, only that he’s gay, can’t stand loud noises, hallucinates dead bodies, and hates his dad.” Vanya explained.

Five looked surprised. “Dead bodies? That must be shit.”

“It is. Antipsychotics don’t help, they just make him sick. His family have stopped funding his treatment, and he’s only gonna be here until his insurance runs out.” Allison sighed.

“Where will he go then?” Five asked, confused.

“Nobody knows. We know that he’s not welcome back at home; not like he’d wanna go back there anyway.” Allison said. “We don’t know anything about his family, but whatever his dad did, it must’ve been awful. I honestly don’t know what could do that to a person.”

“Who’s Ben? Is he one of the dead bodies?” Five thought back to earlier when they mentioned Ben.

“I think he was Klaus’ brother. But he either ran away or died.” Vanya answered.

“I heard a rumour that his dad beat him to death with Klaus watching.” Allison said.

Vanya rolled her eyes. “And that’s an example of a pathological lie. You’ll have to get used to those. Even Allison starts to believe them after a while.”

“You have to admit, it’s a possibility.” Allison pointed out.

“Well, it’s best not to assume things, _or_ spread rumours about people who can’t speak for themselves.”

Five glanced at the clock. “I have a therapy session now.”

“Good luck.”

As he made his way down to Dr Michaels’ office, it started to dawn on him how truly traumatised everyone here was.

He almost expected to bump into the kindergartener he’d attacked.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean, drop a comment if you want. Kudos are cool too. Ice cream sandwiches are nice, but I'm not gonna doxx myself to have one pushed through my letterbox by a stranger at 3am.


End file.
